Cairo has a problem with pollution (see skyline in picture below). It dried up my eyes so much that I couldn't wear my contacts for more than a couple hours. The air was so polluted that I felt like I couldn't breath and I was coughing until a day after I returned to Alexandria.
Taxi drivers go crazy because they can usually rip off tourists. I tried to get two taxi drivers to bid down the price from the Pyramids to a place for lunch and one ended up taking a swing at another. A couple hours later, a taxi driver got out of his car and tried to push me after he thought I didn't pay enough (his tire popped before we got to our destination, so I assumed I'd get a discounted price). After the whole street descended on us (10 people circling us), we all discussed the price. The people on the street were more interested in conflict prevention than a fair deal, so I decided to just pay a dollar more and walk.
Kids can go from playing soccer with their friends to crying on command and trying to get money from foreigners.
Whenever I asked for directions to the American University Bookstore, everyone told me "ala toole" (straight ahead). It turned out that I circled the bookstore for 15 minutes before someone gave me good directions.
Museums and many shops close at 4:30 in preparation for Ramadan dinner. So, we weren't able to check out any of the museums. However, I convinced a guy to open up his bookstore at 5:45, so I could get an English to Arabic dictionary.
The pyramids were super sweet. They are huge. The Sphinx is awesome and camels make pretty funny noises.
